Egyptian prosecutors probe outspoken satirist

Wed 3 Apr 2013, 12:27 AM AEDT

Photo

Bassem Youssef says he is facing investigation over claims of spreading false information and public disorder.

AFP: Khaled Desouki

Egypt's prosecution is investigating complaints of "threatening public security" against popular satirist Bassem Youssef, who is already on bail facing charges of insulting the president and offending Islam.

Judicial sources and Mr Youssef said the public prosecutor ordered the probe on Monday following a complaint by a lawyer.

The state security prosecution, which handles national security cases, will conduct the investigation.

"A new complaint against me has been referred to state security prosecution, for spreading rumours and false news, and disturbing public tranquillity after the last episode," Mr Youssef wrote on Twitter.

"It seems they want to drain us physically, emotionally and financially."

The prosecutor also ordered an investigation into complaints against two journalists over a television programme that discussed Mr Youssef's case, a source from the prosecutor's office said.

One of the journalists, Shaimaa Aboul El Kir, who works as a Middle East consultant for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said she was being investigated for an interview in which she defended Mr Youssef.

"I attended Youssef's questioning and then did an intervention on television. They (the complainants) consider what I did as a 'disturbing to public security'," she said.

Prosecutors are also investigating Jaber al-Qarmuti, the anchor El Kir spoke to on the show aired by the private television channel ONTV.

Judicial sources said Mr Youssef is being investigated along with the head of the CBC television channel which airs his weekly programme Albernameg (The Show), which is modelled on Jon Stewart's satirical The Daily Show.

The complaint against them appears to accuse Mr Youssef of stoking criticism of Islamists and obliquely calling for a "civil war".

Mr Youssef, who regularly skewers the country's ruling Islamists on his wildly popular show, was released on $2,200 bail on Sunday after an interrogation that lasted nearly five hours.

The United States on Monday expressed concern at the proceedings against Mr Youssef, saying it was evidence of a "disturbing trend" of mounting restrictions on freedom of expression.

"We are concerned that the public prosecutor appears to have questioned and then released on bail Bassem Youssef on charges of insulting Islam and president Morsi," US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

"This, coupled with recent arrest warrants issued for other political activists, is evidence of a disturbing trend of growing restrictions on the freedom of expression."

Rights lawyers say there have been four times as many lawsuits for insulting the president under Mr Morsi than during the entire 30 years that Hosni Mubarak ruled.